December 04, 2010

Did MLS hurt the U.S.A.'s chance of hosting the 2022 World Cup?

Ever since FIFA award Qatar the right to host the 2022 World Cup, the nation has made the inevitable leap from grief to pointing the finger and creating USSF guilt by association.

Soccer purists have seen this as a golden opportunity to–once again–point out the flaws of Major League Soccer, claiming it could have hurt even ruined the United States' chance to bring the World Cup back across the Atlantic.

Breaking it down, the only eminent flaws with American soccer (that FIFA has pointed out) have been the ways MLS is structured and how it consistently refuses to abide to FIFA's guidelines.

Though MLS takes a conservative approach in keeping everyone financially stable, and maintaining parity; it is likely that type of organization has caused passive-aggresive action from FIFA. Simply, FIFA is telling the USSF to abide by their rules; which is met by collective unwillingness from MLS and USSF.

Certain comments include the season's format. The league does not abide to the FIFA calendar and runs on from March to November. That is understandable since it causes MLS having just Major League Baseball as its sole competition for fan attention; which MLS seems to be doing well in.

Additionally, the fans' favorite topics such as promotion/relegation comes into play. A closed-franchise system, the league takes an odd pride in the fact that they operate just like an American sports league, rather than every other soccer league on the planet. With this system comes parity, players having to sign with the league instead of teams, and a socialist-system making sure everyone has equal finances.

Evidently, USSF will do whatever it takes to claim the reasons had nothing to do with MLS or the league's operations, even if MLS was the primary reason. While some of the reasons could have been the fact FIFA wants to expand into uncharted territory, those reasons may have been subordinate to the major reasons as to why the United States was not the ideal candidate.

Unfortunately these could be the steps holding back MLS from becoming a respectable league, as well as holding the United States back from having the chance to bring the World Cup back into the league.